The Wedding RingerReview:We gather here today to laughThree-and-a-half starsGroom-to-be Doug (Josh Gad) has no best man and no groomsmen, and his
fiancée has nine in her wedding party. So Doug enlists Jimmy (Kevin
Hart), whose Best Man, Inc. creates fake wedding parties for socially
awkward guys in need. (R) less

The Wedding Ringer
Review:We gather here today to laughThree-and-a-half stars
Groom-to-be Doug (Josh Gad) has no best man and no groomsmen, and his fiancée has nine in her wedding party. So Doug enlists Jimmy ... more

PaddingtonReview: Cubs will love good-natured bear flickFour starsA young bear moves to England after his home in Peru is destroyed. There
he is welcomed by a loving family, but also hunted by a devious
taxidermist. (PG) less

Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the eccentric British genius who built a machine (arguably the first computer) that could crack the complicated encryption code used by Nazis in their messages during World War II.
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The Gambler Review: 'The Gambler' is a good remake of... Photo-7303911.84898 - Times Union

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Big Eyes
Review: Tim Burton at his best in weird, true 'Big Eyes'Five starsTim Burton gets serious with this drama recounting the life of the acclaimed 1950s painter Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) and the ensuing battles with her husband (Christoph Waltz), who started taking credit for her work. less

Big Eyes
Review: Tim Burton at his best in weird, true... Photo-7303927.84898 - Times Union

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Unbroken
Review:
Jolie lingers on the beatings in 'Unbroken'
Three stars
Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the screenplay and Angelina Jolie directed this retelling of the harrowing experiences of Louis Zamperini (played by Jack O’Connell), the Olympic runner who was captured by the Japanese during World War II. less

Into the Woods Review:'Into the Woods' ventures off the beaten path Three-and-a-half starsRob Marshall (“Chicago”) directs this adaptation of the Broadway musical phenomenon about a witch (Meryl Streep) making life difficult for Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), the one with the beanstalk. Johnny Depp, Chris Pine Emily Blunt and Lucy Punch round out the star-studded cast. less

Now that it's over, finally, we can see that all three parts of "The Hobbit" told a very simple story: Bilbo, a hobbit, is recruited by dwarves to help them steal treasure from a dragon. They do, but then end up in a big battle with scary, evil Orcs. That's it. That's what it took three movies and eight hours of screen time to tell. less

The new "Annie" is intimate and hip, sarcastic and flip. It opens by mocking the cliched redheaded cheerfulness of the Depression-era comic strip and proceeds to give the little orphan - "Not an orphan. I'm a foster kid!" - sass to go along with a heart so big it melts all of New York.

After wrapping his last shot of Robin Williams in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" in May, Shawn Levy, the movie's director, joined Ben Stiller, its star, in an on-set tribute to Williams.
The film's crew responded with a standing ovation. Caught on video, the applause went on for two minutes. less

"Wild" has so many things in its favor that it's tempting to leave out that it's a movie about a hike that sometimes feels like being on a hike, a long one, without many changes of scenery. But the movie's achievement is that it overcomes this. The filmmakers take a potentially plodding, numbing situation and, scene by scene, struggle and succeed in keeping the action alive, one step at a time. less

"The Great Invisible, "a quietly dispiriting look at the human toll of the BP oil spill disaster, is a solid piece of journalism that keeps rabble-rousing to a minimum. Call it the anti-Michael Moore approach. less

In his previous movies, Chris Rock has been brilliant only in flashes. But with "Top Five," his third feature as a writer-director, he has made a film that's as consistently smart and funny as his standup comedy. less

It's a strange thing, the process of seducing an audience into accepting something. Just moments into "Exodus: Gods and Kings," we are confronted with the spectacle of John Turturro dressed as an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. He looks about as comfortable in a headdress as he might if a pelican were standing on his head. Then he starts speaking, and it's an unfamiliar English accent - because as we all know from movies, that's how the ancient Egyptians talked. less

Any conversation about "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" must begin with a description of how it was filmed. It was shot in long takes, many of which involved following characters down hallways and in out of tight corners and small dressing rooms. Then it was strung together in such a way that it plays as though the entire movie were done in one unbroken shot. less

I was an easily frightened child, and nothing scared me more than certain picture books. Something about the static images, the simple words and the unseen menaces hidden between pages made books much more sinister than, say, movies, and quite a few volumes that now seem perfectly innocuous were banished from my bedroom shelves. I had forgotten about this youthful phobia until I saw "The Babadook," the debut feature by Australian director Jennifer Kent. Or rather, until I came home from the screening, went to bed and woke up in the throes of the kind of nightmare that was the reason I had shunned those books in the first place. less

There's a good movie hidden inside "Panic 5 Bravo," the directing debut from Mexican actor Kuno Becker, best known in the U.S. for roles on the TV shows "Dallas" and "CSI: Miami." In fact, the first 20 minutes of this thriller - with its flashes of tense, terrified claustrophobia - show Becker has skills, especially considering he's working on a low budget. If only the story, which he also wrote, were better. less

Blame it on lowered expectations for the umpteenth cartoon starring those commando penguins from "Madagascar," over-exposed little darlings who stole all those movies and went on to star in their own spin-off TV series.
Or lay it at the feet of the Dreamworks Animation trademark style - slapstick for the kids, and a boatload of wisecracks aimed at the parents who also sit through these farces aimed at the under-8 crowd.
But "Penguins of Madagascar" is as "cute and cuddly" as ever, and often downright hilarious. less

Your enjoyment of "Horrible Bosses 2" is almost wholly dependent on your tolerance for clusters of funny actors, babbling, riffing - and in the case of Charlie Day, screeching - all at once.
That's how they communicate. And if we get headaches listening to them, imagine how they're suffering for their art. less

Only in the movie business could someone sell such shoddy merchandise and expect people to buy it. If “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1” were an appliance, it would be a broken toaster that people would toss in the garbage. Except that analogy is too kind, in that “Mockingjay” would be half a toaster.

Few will regret having seen "The Homesman," and yet it's not exactly an enjoyable experience. The film occupies that peculiar space that many of us would prefer to believe doesn't exist, a movie that's worthy but often inert, by turns enriching and enervating: A good boring movie. less

There is a fundamental miscalculation at the heart of "Foxcatcher," an assumption that the tale being told is an Important American Story. It's not. It is a curious story, and a mildly interesting one, but not one with big reverberations, not one that says something about the country or modern life. Inflating the tale beyond its natural scale only makes it feel trivial, like a fuss built around a minor incident. less

Is this worse for Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels? That's the sort of question that comes to mind while not laughing at "Dumb and Dumber To." Either out of nostalgia, or a sense of loyalty, or some epic misreading of the script, or a payday beyond the dreams of most mere mortals, Carrey and Daniels agreed to appear in this ghastly sequel, which is more than just not funny. "King Lear" isn't funny. This is anti-funny, where every attempt at a joke is like a little rock thrown at your face.

"Big Hero 6" is, shot after shot, an intelligent and artful creation. There's a scene in which the filmmakers convey a funeral's taking place with a medium shot of black umbrellas opening up. They pull back to show people standing at a cemetery in the rain and then dissolve to a post-funeral gathering, filmed from outside the house through rain-spattered windows. And all the while, the camera is slowly moving. less

This is turning into a very good year for Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The intimations of stardom that were evident in "Belle" come into full blossom in "Beyond the Lights." As a work of art, the movie is merely on the bright side of OK. But as a vehicle for an emerging star, as a platform to show one actress in a variety of modes and moods, within a sympathetic and glamorous context, it couldn't be better.

House hunting can be such a pain. Just ask retired space pilot Cooper, played by Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey in “Interstellar.” The news that the Earth is orbiting toward the exit because of a global blight prompts a desperate quest for a new home in Christopher Nolan’s new film. less

Just in physical terms, Eddie Redmayne's transformation into Stephen Hawking is something remarkable. Most of us are familiar with the wheelchair-bound Hawking, slouching to one side and speaking with an electronic voice. Redmayne turns himself into that Hawking over the course of "The Theory of Everything," but slowly, one gesture and deterioration at a time - until the resemblance becomes something between uncanny and downright freakish.

In his first movie as a director, Jon Stewart has made things easy on himself, but he's also made things hard. The easy part is that he has made a movie that mostly involves just two people in a room talking. The hard part is that it's very difficult to make that kind of movie interesting.

Much respect for Kristen Stewart, the "Twilight" star who could have contented herself with "Snow White" films or globe-trotting, nibbling on bonbons and dating the rich and the beautiful for the rest of her life.
Instead, she's doing daring indie fare like "Camp X-Ray," an inside Guantanamo melodrama about a soldier, an Islamic inmate and the claustrophobic space they share, isolated from the world at America's military prison for "enemy noncombatants."

There’s a feeling of contrivance about “Laggies,” with characters thrown together who wouldn’t be thrown together, and events stringing along that would never be allowed to happen. But Keira Knightley holds the whole contraption together with a performance of spontaneity and offhand inspiration.

Nicole Kidman wakes up from a nightmare and finds herself in bed with a man she doesn't recognize. In the bathroom are photos of herself and this man, taken over the course of years - vacations, wedding pictures. She looks at them vacantly, and when she walks out of the bathroom, the man (Colin Firth) is sitting on the edge of the bed with an explanation: He is her husband, and she has amnesia. less

"The Two Faces of January" has the allure of a thriller and the haunting quality of a character study. It follows three people, all of them flawed and under pressure, and keeps the audience in sympathy with all three. It's some kind of feat to place three people in conflict and have the audience wish the best for each of them. less

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
This in essence is the message of "Citizenfour," Laura Poitras' documentary on Edward Snowden's decision to expose the National Security Agency's ravenous appetite for clandestinely collecting the personal data of ordinary citizens. If left unchecked, the film persuasively posits, this lust for information on an unprecedented scale could mean the end of privacy as we know it. less

A generation ago, "Nightcrawler" might have been a satire written by Paddy Chayefsky. But when satire meets reality, there's no need to exaggerate, and so we get this story of a creepy guy who spends his nights filming scenes of human calamity and selling them to TV news. less

"Dear White People" is the name of Houston native Justin Simien's first feature film, and I'll say right away that it is as smart and fearless a debut as I have seen from an American filmmaker in quite some time: knowing but not snarky, self-aware but not solipsistic, open to influence and confident in its own originality. It's a clever campus comedy that juggles a handful of hot potatoes - race, sex, privilege, power - with elegant agility and only an occasional fumble. You want to see this movie, and you will want to talk about it afterward, even if the conversation feels a little awkward. If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong. There is great enjoyment to be found here, and very little comfort.

Is Mark Landis the only art forger who puts his paintings into Wal-Mart frames? That may be the least of his eccentricities, as we learn in "Art and Craft," a droll documentary that may remind you of Errol Morris' work.
For decades, Landis has been copying paintings and drawings - by the likes of Picasso, Mary Cassatt, even Charles Schulz - and donating them to dozens of museums in 20 states. His game was to present these copies as originals, and many institutions clearly failed to examine the gifts closely - the film includes interviews with some red-faced curators. less

"We can't help but enjoy watching some performers kick butt. Denzel Washington, Liam Neeson, Gina Carano - they each bring an authenticity, even a meanness, to what they do that puts you in the moment with them. Then there's Keanu Reeves.
Mr. "Matrix" is right at the top of that meat mountain, but with a style all his own. His dancelike precision is almost beautiful as he crushes a windpipe, breaks an elbow or blows someone's brains out."

Early in "Men, Women & Children," the latest from director Jason Reitman, there is an overhead shot of people in a shopping mall, looking down at their cellphones. Next to their heads, in little thought balloons, graphics show what is on their screens. It's all either mundane or worse, as in callous, crude or just stupid.

"Awake: The Life of Yogananda" wants to do two things: introduce Paramahansa Yogananda, who imported yoga and meditation to the United States, to a wider audience, and provide us with a mystical experience of sorts.
Sometimes these goals get in each other's way in this reverential, yet long-overdue documentary, which examines a figure who came to America in the 1920s and went on to inspire people around the world.

At a certain point in "Ouija," a terrible dread seizes the audience. This dread takes the form of a realization, and the realization is that somebody is trying to sell you a Ouija board. What's more, they're employing a peculiar marketing strategy, or at least one that might sound peculiar to someone who knows nothing of human nature: Buy this. It will kill you.

"23 Blast" tells a fact-based story about a star high school football player in Kentucky who gets a killer infection and ends up, in a matter of hours, completely and irreversibly blind. It's about a kid without a care in the world, whose entire sense of himself is bound up with the idea of playing football, who becomes suddenly helpless - and, for a time, hopeless.

"Fury" is the first World War II movie inflected by a post 9/11, post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan, 21st-century point of view. It takes place in Germany in April 1945, just a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe, and one of the first things you realize is that it's just as easy to get killed on the last day of a war as the first. Four guys are in a tank, along with the dead body of a fifth, and aside from the dead guy, nobody is getting along. They're dirty, they're exhausted, and they've been brutalized and coarsened. They're not better people for having been in combat. They're much worse.

If you think there's nothing left to say about the Vietnam War, take a look at Rory Kennedy's remarkable new documentary. "Last Days in Vietnam," about the 1975 evacuation of Saigon, is a film of great sadness but also a galvanizing depiction of heroism.
Kennedy ("Ghosts of Abu Ghraib") isn't interested in scoring political points or venting. She offers a clear-eyed look at America's failure to set its exit plan in motion until the North Vietnamese were poised to take the city. This was a moment of grave danger for both U.S. Embassy personnel and citizens of Saigon who were friendly to America.

One of these days, someone should make a movie about a really nasty old guy who, by the end of the story, is still a nasty old guy. Of course, that wouldn't be much of a journey and wouldn't make for a good story, but at this point, it might be worth sacrificing drama just for a burst of honesty.

He's an oil-rig worker who reads Stephen Hawking, an expert mechanic and, oh, by the way, is gorgeous. This heroic, humble specimen of perfect middle age also gardens. And cooks. His name? Dawson Cole.
Welcome back to the world of Nicholas Sparks, with its kisses in the rain and unconvincing obstacles. This time around, it's "The Best of Me," directed by Michael Hoffman. Hoffman made "The Last Station" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (with Kevin Kline and Rupert Everett), so that's not the worst possible start.

It's not easy making an uplifting film about the aftermath of the death of a son. But director/co-writer William H. Macy and actor Billy Crudup, as the bereaved father, pull it off in "Rudderless," a movie more about redemption than the causes of evil.

To its credit, "Dracula Untold" finds something new to do with the Dracula story. It mixes the vampire element with some of the true history of Vlad the Impaler, who in this movie is a really nice guy saddled with an unfortunate nickname. For that reason, when he meets a woman here, he just says, "I'm Vlad" and leaves off the other part because that name is a distraction in forging relationships.

Whatever else children take from Judith Viorst's delightful "Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day," the sly subtext to this picture-heavy book is how exhausting and sometimes misguided the optimism of the eternally optimistic can be less

Movies based on true stories can cause trepidation. So many liberties are routinely taken that enjoyment becomes complicated.
And then there are movies like "Pride."
This portrayal of the unlikely 1980s alliance between London gay-rights activists and striking Welsh miners is, quite simply, one of the best movies of the year so far.

"Hector and the Search for Happiness" is like a dozen greeting cards come to cinematic life.
Lines of animated Hallmark text even appear on screen from time to time. "Happiness is answering your calling." "Happiness is being loved for who you are." "Happiness is going to a feel-good movie and getting no more or less than what you paid for."

“Gone Girl” is a great thriller until it stops being one, about 20 minutes before the finish. Until then it’s brilliant, not just a triumph of story but of strategy, a movie that keeps the audience grasping and reaching in all the wrong directions, while consistently delivering something a little better, a little crazier and a little more disturbing than expected.

Take "The Judge" on its own terms, as a touching exploration of a father-son relationship, and you may be disappointed. Honest in some ways, it also has just enough schmaltz to make viewers pull back precisely when they're supposed to surrender fully. Sometimes, sentimental is just another word for predictable. "The Judge," despite many virtues, follows a pattern.
Better to think of it this way, as a collision between Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr. - or rather their personas - thrown together in a scenario in which they must pretend to be father and son.

It's hard to know what to think about "Kill the Messenger," and this makes it frustrating to watch. It tells the real-life story of a newspaper reporter whose series on a "dark alliance" between the CIA and drug dealers made him seem on track to win the Pulitzer Prize. Then he came under attack by other newspapers for supposed sloppy reporting, and his own newspaper refused to support him.

The mystery is why the movies are being rebooted. Why were the original “Left Behinds” left behind, and does that mean they’re not in cinematic heaven? After all, the original no-heaven-for-you drama scored a mere 16 on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed a very, very, very low $4.2 million. The reboot figures to ascend above that mark; praise be for ticket-price inflation.